I have traveled the world—lived in every type of place you can imagine—and I know enough to say that the only real win in life is something I can’t have. Vernon can’t have it either—we have this in common. Love is the only win. Tender, sweet love unconcerned with control or power. About half the people on Earth are incapable of that, just like me and Vernon. It makes them faster to hate, easier to control, and impressive liars. My kind of people.

  ACT TWO:

  Old Business / Europe, Asia & Africa

  Cast in order of appearance:

  Oak Tree

  Dr. Love

  Mrs. Constance

  Addi

  Miss Wilde

  Gretchen Brown

  KZ

  Porter

  Marlon

  Mr. Rothenberg

  OLD BUSINESS

  Today is Friday, December 20, 2024

  Henry says, “Vernon told me today that Mother tried to kill him one time with a kitchen knife.”

  There’s a bout of silence that feels like glass.

  “I saw that,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was there. Under the kitchen table,” I say. “You were just a baby.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

  I shrug.

  “What was she like? Why did she stab him?” His eyes are wide, like this isn’t a story about Mother and Vernon, but two exciting strangers in a neighboring house.

  “I closed my eyes,” I say. “It was terrifying.”

  Suddenly, I need fresh air.

  The sky is blue and purple because it is sunset. It’s cold out here, but the air helps.

  My mother didn’t stab my father.

  I was there. Under the table, like I said.

  It was terrifying, like I said.

  I hear the door open and close. “You okay?” Henry asks. He tugs on my arm and I realize I’ve been out here too long and I probably look suspicious.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.”

  We go inside. I stand by the fire. There is a part of me that will never be warm.

  Cottage Pie

  Marta makes a stunning cottage pie for dinner and serves it with her fresh-from-the-oven dinner rolls. While I’m buttering my roll, I say, “Henry, are you still too scared to ask Vernon about what we were talking about this afternoon? I can ask him for you if you like.”

  “Let the boy ask his own questions,” Vernon says.

  “Hear, hear!” Finch says.

  Henry looks at me and indicates that he is too frightened to ask, so I say nothing.

  We eat and it’s pretty quiet.

  Henry tells us that he’d like to be a vampire for Halloween next year and then mentions that Halloween is weird because we can’t leave our house. “Do you think we’ll be able to trick or treat like normal next year?” Henry asks.

  “I’ll be too old,” I say.

  “You can still come with me!” Henry says.

  Finch shows mild interest but claims she dislikes holidays—her birthday most of all. I don’t think any gift she ever got was good enough. This comment kills the conversation for two whole minutes.

  “So, is that what you wanted Jane to ask?” Vernon eventually asks Henry.

  “No,” Henry answers.

  “Oh,” Vernon says.

  Henry looks at me. Another minute passes.

  “Okay fine, Jane, ask his question for him,” Vernon says.

  I time it well. Leave some space for anticipation. One of Vernon’s unspoken rules is Don’t ever act afraid of me because I am not scary. So I try to get just to the edge of that—right when he’s about to snap, I speak.

  “Henry wants to see your scar from the time Mother stabbed you,” I say.

  Finch’s eyebrows raise.

  Time stops for a moment. Then it speeds up.

  “You may not!” Vernon says-yells. When no one says anything because time has frozen us, he adds, “It’s far too grotesque for dinner conversation.”

  Henry nods and accepts the disappointment. I accept nothing.

  “Oh—be a sport,” I say.

  “I do not wish to be reminded of the day I was put through that horror!” he says lightly, as if he’s saying it to the dinner roll he’s buttering.

  “You’ve told him about how it all happened and how you bled and how you had to call the doctor and I think you even told him you got stitches. How many again?”

  Henry says, “Nine.”

  “Nine,” I say, “That’s right. Nine stitches. From that horrible day when Mother stabbed you. Was she trying to kill you? I forget that part of the story,” I ask.

  “She was,” Vernon says.

  “Man, that must have been scary,” I say.

  “You see now why I had to put her in the System,” he says. “She was a danger.”

  “I see,” I say. “Though you waited what—six years?—before locking her up.”

  He looks frozen again. “I wanted to give her a chance to get better. She’s quite sick, you know. The doctor says she has anxiety!” He says this while staring at the antique bookcases opposite the table. Then he says, “We should tidy up for Marta tonight. Don’t you think?” and gets up and starts clearing the table.

  “Can you point to where the scar is?” I ask. “Henry is curious.”

  Vernon picks up two plates, his and Finch’s, and then pretends he wants to point but can’t, so he gestures with his elbow to a spot on the right side of his abdomen and then heads to the kitchen with the plates.

  I can hear Marta scold him. “Mina pays me plenty to clear your plates, Vernon. Please let me do my job.”

  When he comes back and sits down, butters another roll, I say, “So she stabbed you with her left hand or did she, like, cross your body?”

  “This is the end of the discussion,” Vernon says. “It’s not dinner conversation.”

  “Henry was curious, is all. He said you told him all about the stabbing last week and he came to me to make sure we were safe.”

  “We’re safe now, Henry. I took care of everything,” Vernon says.

  Henry beams.

  Lying makes me hungry. I butter another roll and finish my cottage pie.

  Finch flops on the couch in the sitting room, which we can see from here, pulls out her phone, and dives in.

  Vernon pulls out his phone as well and laughs at something, and then types a text and sends it off. Finch’s phone sounds with a ding. She laughs. It’s all very silly.

  “I was there, you know.” That’s what I say.

  No one responds at first.

  “I regret telling the boy anything about it,” Vernon says, pretty much to himself and his phone. He almost whispers it.

  “I’m glad you told me,” Henry says. “I didn’t know Mother was dangerous in that way. I thought she was just a witch.”

  “I was there,” I say again. “I saw the whole thing.”

  Vernon looks over at me. “As if your memory holds from that age.”

  “I remember a lot from that age,” I say. “Same as you do, right? All those stories from your terrible childhood.”

  “Yes, well, what you saw and what was really happening are two different things,” he says. “You can’t really trust your eyes, now, can you?”

  “I seem to see okay.”

  “Jane, please.”

  “I was there,” I say.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” he says. This line seems to escape his mouth rather than be spoken. “You’re always manipulating me!”

  “I’m just saying I was there and I saw what I saw. That’s all.”

  He continues to sop up the last of the cottage pie juice with his roll and ignores me.

  “It was quite a scene to see as a four-year-old. One day maybe you’ll ask me about it.”

  I know it all sounds quite energetic and almost exciting, but I assure you, it’s nothing of the sort. Murder was something talked about quite a lot in our Victorian home. I didn’t know this until I started stumbling across the home movies. For example, this:

  Home Movie—08.05.2021

  I am thirteen.

  “Tell me what she said!” Finch says to me. We’re on the couch and she’s got a box of chocolates.

  “She didn’t say anything. She’s inside the tubes, right? I can’t hear her.”

  “She’s an animal!”

  “She’s my mom.” I nod and chew. “It’s not like Vernon can run the whole house, though, right?” I ask.

  She sits up quickly. “She’s not to be trusted! She could kill you, you know.”

  “Kill me?”

 

  Or this:

  Home Movie—05.23.2016

  I am eight and Henry is four and we’re out by the fountain feeding birds, trying to get them to eat right out of our hands.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Finch yells from the patio bench.

  I look caught. Henry looks caught but has that cute-little-kid giggle on his face. I look more terrified.

  “You’re going to get sick if they touch you!” she yells.

  Henry says something to me under his breath.

 

  I remember what he said. He said, “I wish she’d stop.”

 

  I throw my birdseed out onto the paving stones around the fountain. Henry keeps clucking at a house sparrow that’s been eating out of his hand for the last five minutes.

  “Henry!” Finch yells. The birds fly away. “The two of you come here right now!”

  Henry and I walk to the patio.

  She sits us down on the bench in full view of the camera, and says, “I’m in charge and I won’t have you injured.”

  “It’s a bird,” Henry says—back when he couldn’t pronounce his Rs right—“It won’t hurt us.”

  “Do you know who will? My sister, Mina. You think she’s so great but she’d cut your head right off your neck, you know.”

 

  I surmise this is the reason I have had the feeling of escape in my bones for as long as I can remember.

  Postmarked November 18, 2024

  Picture of a Big-Horned Steer’s Face Up Close

  Dear All,

  I can’t wait for the next month to pass so I can come home. I miss you all so much. The tour has been going well—Phoenix and Las Cruces were both great shows. Tonight is Austin and then again tomorrow night. The band decided to cancel our dates in Florida due to the political lunacy. Screw them. We will donate proceeds from Run, Jane, Run to help queer kids in Florida, for sure. Anyway, I miss you all. Love you! Mom

  Walking

  It’s early morning, winter solstice. I’m on the new neighborhood walking and biking trail, which is nicely paved, really pretty, and a half mile from home. It’s got trees and bushes and there’s a creek and a bridge over the creek. The sun is shining and it smells like wet leaves and dirt and someone has a fire lit, because woodsmoke is a definite theme.

  I forgot how much I love seeing my breath.

  “Jane! Stop!” This echoes in the bare woods surrounding the trail. I’ve already crossed the bridge and there’s nowhere to hide. I run on instinct.

  “My tired legs cannot run,” Milorad huffs.

  “It’s my lucky day!” I say, and keep running.

  I look back and Milorad has stopped on the bridge and is looking out at the creek, his chest heaving. I know the consequences he could face and I realize that, in a sense, we are both Vernon’s captives. I turn around and walk back. He notes this by grinning at me and waving, then sitting down, tired.

  I sigh. “How’d he even track me?”

  Milorad shrugs. As we walk back to the house, I tell him that I want to learn how to play the guitar and there isn’t anything wrong with that.

  “Your father has good reason for no music,” he says.

  I don’t reply. We walk the path, our breath in front of us. I can never tell if Milorad is brainwashed or just doing his best under the circumstances. We are all brainwashed—even me, though I know far more of the truth now. I’m dealing with the aftereffects, really.

  If you get a child to hate one of their parents, you get them to hate half of themselves. If you want to know why I hissed and meowed and threw those sheets in the loo, then you must know I was hateful most of all to myself because every part of me is Punk Rock Jane, and every part of me knew that I was being set up to be hated, too. Looking back, I think Vernon had no idea about this part. He was so intent on his hate because he’s a selfish man who needs people to like him—and yet, look at him.

  Vernon isn’t the kind of man who would loosen the screws in your chair and then call you a fat bitch when the chair falls apart. He’s the kind of man who loosens the screws in your chair and, when it collapses, offers you help to get up, and then a week later retells the story boisterously in front of you about how stupid you looked as you fell.

  It’s sadism-lite on the physical plane, but on the psychological plane, it’s fucking torture. It turns out, my father’s lies to God have become his personality. He is a hoax—top to bottom—a homemade competitor for not our love, but our loyalty, neither of which he possesses himself. I don’t even think God knows who he is. And when you’re fooling God, there have got to be some consequences.

  “What’s his good reason?” I ask. When Milorad looks confused, I add, “For not allowing music?”

  He looks down, seeming ashamed. “Your father is complicated person.”

  “But what’s his good reason?”

  Milorad stops walking and looks at me. “He does not want to encourage you or your brother to go into music because it’s so hard on the family.”

  I look up at him as we walk. “What’s hard on this family is Vernon lying to God.”

  “Lying to God?” he asks.

  “He’s a bartender of lies,” I say.

  “A—bartend—?”

  I nod once. “You are imperfect. I forgive you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We walk awhile in silence. I can see Milorad wanting to point out each species of tree to me, but he holds back.

  “Have you heard from Gemma at all? I miss her very much.”

  “She is working for another family since last month when you escaped from every suitor your father arranged for you,” he says. “I am sure she misses you, too.”

  “Maybe she can visit at Christmas.”

  “I’m sure you can request for her,” he says.

  “I don’t want to hire her,” I say. “She’s my friend. I want to eat dinner with her and go for a walk.”

  “No more walks!” he says with a laugh.

  When we get back to the house, Milorad walks toward the pool house, and I follow him. He seems alarmed to see me in his living room, but I’m here, folded onto a chair. “Can I have a bottle of water from the fridge?”

  As he’s getting me my water, Marta slips in the back door. “You’ve been found! Your father will be relieved.”

  “Ugh. Spare me,” I say.

  “He was worried?” she tries.

  “He just wants to control everyone.” I make a remote-control gesture with my hand.

  She shrugs and Milorad gives me a water and gives one to Marta, as well. I sense that I am not wanted here, but I don’t plan on budging. I go to the cage and talk to Brutus. He’s a great little rat. People who don’t hang out with rats don’t get it, but they’re really smart and pretty fun, too. One time, Brutus chased his tail until he fell over. It was hilarious. And he does tricks. And he’s a fantastic escaper. Just like me.

  Postmarked November 24, 2024

  Picture of the Statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

  Hello from Minnesota!

  It’s cold! Like—way too cold for me, and last night when we left the theater, there was SNOW on the ground. Oh, it makes me miss home. I hope it snows over Christmas break and maybe we can go sledding down the big hill. I know that sounds off-script, but it would be nice to be allowed some normalcy. I suppose I’m feeling bold after a month away and me being confined to System doesn’t feel all that healthy for any of us anymore. Let’s talk about it when I’m back. I can’t wait! Love you, Mom

  LESSON FOUR: EUROPEAN GEOGRAPHY

  Today is Saturday, December 21, 2024

  “Just tell me the forty-four countries in Europe and then learn the capitals.” Vernon holds a cup of black coffee and doesn’t make eye contact.

  “Are you cross with me, Vernon?” I say it in Victorian Jane, a lilt in my voice and pity. So much pity.

  “I’m not so much cross as I am disappointed,” he says, handing me some worksheets as weekend punishment, as if days of the week matter anymore.

  “I’ll try to improve,” I say.

  “I can’t believe the shit you put me through, Jane. Seriously,” he says. After some head shaking, he grumbles, “How hard is it to just know what the right thing to do is?”

  I work on my list of forty-four European countries, west to east, and ignore his question. Iceland, Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Andorra, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lichtenstein, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia. Twenty-five.

  “How hard, Jane?”

  I look up. “I thought it rhetorical. Really, how do I answer that?”